Fullers ESB 'Can you brew it'

[mysterio]

I thought this was great:

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/632

Including an interview with a Fullers brewer. I had absolutely no idea the ESB and London pride were a parti-gyle from the same mash although this is probably common knowledge.

[Eadweard]

Golden pride, ESB, London Pride and Chiswick are all parti-gyled together.

[Jolum]

I must confess to liking Jamil in spite of myself - I used to giggle to myself listening to The Jamil Show on the headphones at work
I've actually been meaning to make one of the recipes from his Brewing Classic Styles book (Mike Riddle's Tricentennial Stout) but there are just too many recipes and too few hours in the week to brew I've already planned the next 3 brews - Theakston's Old Peculiar, a TTL but with Bobek instead of Styrians and (yet another) Samual Smiths Oatmeal stout because it doesn't last at all in my house

[SMASH3R]

22L post-boil, 70% efficiency, 15% evaporation (apparently), 26L-ish preboil, Rager IBU, recipe is primary fermenter only (no secondary).

OG 1060
FG 1010
35 IBU

90 minute boil

5.83kg Marris Otter Pale Malt 5EBC (95%)
310g British Dark Crystal Malt 400EBC/150L°(5%)

19g Target 11%AA at 60min (21 IBU)
15g Challenger 7.5%AA at 3min (2.5 IBU)
15g Northdown 8.5%AA at 3min (3 IBU)
3g Goldings 4.75%AA at 3min (0.5 IBU)
Giving a total of 27 IBU from the boil

21g Goldings 4.75%AA in to the copper post-boil for around 30 minutes hot (this apparently adds about 20% of the bitterness - 13 IBU)

WLP002 - english ale yeast (I am thinking Nottingham for a dried yeast because 1060 to 1010 is high attenuation; over 80%)

Water is burtonized with gypsum.

Recommended fermentation to start at 17°C and raise to 20°C over the course of fermentation.
I would suggest fermentation for 1 week, then dry hop in a baggy sack with big nuts for an additional 2 weeks.
Dry hopping with Goldings in the fermenter, but no values given on the show. I guess 28g would be a good start.

Mash at 64.5°C for 60min (although surely 90mins can't hurt).

Toward the end of the show, Jamil was talking about how the ESB is from first runnings, and this might go a long way to explaining how they missed the clone attempt (particularly the forward, malty flavour). Plus they used medium US crystal, not dark crystal. I was wondering if it might be worth increasing the grain bill by about 25%, sparge to around 24L and top up to the 1060OG post-boil. This way, the grain bed is not being sparged to death and should provide good, malty flavour in the beer. Sparging to 70 plus percent efficiency doesn't seem to be the way to go to replicate this parti-gyle mash beer.

[steve_flack]

I'm pretty sure in the interview John Keeling says they use 150 EBC crystal...not Lovibond.

[SMASH3R]

I wasn't sure either, but the beer was brewed with 70L° US crystal, and the colour was consistently reported by the panel as far too pale. Later in the show, Jamil refers to using Simpson Dark crystal, however the Simpsons Dark crystal is also around 70L°. I figured that the Simpsons extra dark crystal at around 150L°C/400EBC would tie up with getting a darker beer and was therefore the one to use.

Are you saying that using the british dark crystal at 70L°/150BC will produce a significantly darker beer than the US 70L° crystal?

[steve_flack]

No, I"m not but I'm pretty certain that Fullers colour adjust their beers. They used to use caramel now I understand they use a chocolate malt based colorant.

[hazard]

OG 1060
FG 1010
35 IBU

90 minute boil

5.83kg Marris Otter Pale Malt 5EBC (95%)
310g British Dark Crystal Malt 400EBC/150L°(5%)

19g Target 11%AA at 60min (21 IBU)
15g Challenger 7.5%AA at 3min (2.5 IBU)
15g Northdown 8.5%AA at 3min (3 IBU)
3g Goldings 4.75%AA at 3min (0.5 IBU)
Giving a total of 27 IBU from the boil

Haven't listened to the show yet, will download tonight, but in the meantime I am surprised by this recipe. Look at the following link:

http://rarebeerclub.beveragebistro.com/rbcbeer_12.html

According to Fuller's head brewer, ESB grist is 91.5% pale malt, 5% maize and 3.5% crystal (maybe caramel is used to adjust colour). Does jamil mention this or is is just pale malt and crystal as per above reciope? I notice that Graham wheeler's recipe (3rd Edition) uses pale malt and crystal (10% IIRC) only. Has recipe changed in recent years?

[steve_flack]

Has recipe changed in recent years?

Yes, Fullers' recipes have changed over the years. For example these from 1962.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2009 ... lp-lp.html

They are apparently now all malt brews. The recipe you mention is referred to John Keeling as 'the original ESB recipe'.

[SMASH3R]

The recipe on the linked ratebeerclub website is 2005, so it definately seems the recipe has changed since then.

John Keeling is still the head brewer at Fuller's and is the chap interviewed by the CYBI show.

[SMASH3R]

I recall that the BN show had some problems with the ‘malty’ character of the beer, and I thought this was partly attributed to the partigyle process being used. Therefore I changed my ingredient quantities and shot for 60% efficiency with continuous sparging. I used a slight water adjustment at the end of the boil to get the appropriate starting gravity. I recall that the Fuller’s brewer reported using crystal 150 (EBC) and achieving a beer colour of 32 EBC.

I used the following recipe for 15 litres in to the fermenter:
4530g of Warminster floor malted pale Maris otter (94.7%)
240g of Thomas Fawcett crystal malt (130EBC) (5%)
11g Thomas Fawcett black malt (1300EBC)

I needed to add the black malt at recipe construction because the beer software (both Graham Wheeler’s Beer Engine and Beersmith) were reporting colour at approximately 25 EBC.

I added 4g of gypsum and 1g calcium chloride to the mash for my very neutral, very soft water.
Mashed at 64°C for 90 minutes with 10 litres of water.
The mash measured at pH 5.2 and lost 1°C over the 90 minutes.
Sparged with water at 80°C to achieve a pre-boil volume of 20 litres.
4g of gypsum added to the boil.

I boiled for 70 minutes, which probably works out at about 60-65 minutes vigorous boil because it take a while for the immersion element from a cheap domestic kettle to really get going. Unfortunately, I then suffer from a strong boil, so evaporation is around 15% an hour.

Target hops were substituted for fuggle because I didn’t have target and I have an excess of fuggle at the moment from my local micro brewer.
Hop schedule as follows:
Fuggle 25 IBU 70 mins
Challenger 2 IBU 3 mins
Northdown 2 IBU 3 mins
EKG 1 IBU 3 mins
EKG 15g at flameout (hopefully around 5 IBU)
EKG 10g dry hop in fermenter

I don’t have ready access (or money) for live yeast at the moment, so I chose to try Danstar Nottingham. Plus the gravity drop reported by Fuller’s gets the beer down to 1.010, which is impressive from a reported 1.060. This was a repitch from a batch of pale, lightly hopped English ale that had only just been taken and rinsed from the bottom of the fermenter as per the Brewstrong show on repitching yeast.
Day 1 was at 17°C, with ramping up to 20°C over four days.
Dry hop added at day 4.
Bottled after a total fermentation time of 18 days, with 6g of ‘brewers sugar’ per litre (approximately 5g of fermentable sugar per litre).

O.G. was supposed to be 1.057 and achieved 1.057
F.G. was supposed to be 1.012 and achieved 1.012
ABV estimated to be circa 5.9%

On the show, gravities were given as 1.060 and 1.010, which equates to about 6.5% ABV using any of the online ABV calculators, not the 5.9% that should be targeted. This seems like something is amiss with the gravities supplied by Fuller’s.

Started drinking it after about 3 weeks.
Compared it against some bottled Fuller’s ESB this weekend (four weeks in bottles), with comparison as follows:

Colour is slightly too dark. Ha, I knew I shouldn’t have added the black malt.

Taste is almost perfect, except for a slight burnt, roasted hint. I knew I shouldn’t have added the black malt. It still has a good spectrum of malty, caramel type flavours, and apart from the roast, I am amazed at how close the taste still is to the Fuller’s beer.

Carbonation shows nothing between the beers, both served at the same temperature (7°C and allowed to warm up whilst being drank over about 30 mins).

A difference in bitterness cannot be detected by my palate, nor by my assistants. The use of fuggle for bittering doesn't seem to have affected the final result.

Smell is where the big difference lies. The homebrew smells like a tasty, English beer hopped with EKG; which it is. The Fuller’s beer has a rich, malt-type aroma which is not present in the homebrew. I say malt-type, because it is not just malt that can be smelt. What I will say is that you also get exactly the same smell from bottled Fuller’s London Pride. I cannot, therefore, assume that the smell from ESB is simply as a result of the partigyle process, because Fuller’s wring everything out of the sparge for the London Pride, then blend in a bit of the first runnings to hit target gravity.

The smell difference is what really kills this beer from being a very good clone attempt for me. This beer is quite strong, and after a couple of Fuller’s ESB pints, if you handed me one of my homebrew beers, taste-wise, I wouldn’t notice the difference – even with the slight roast character. Unfortunately, as you bring the two beers to you mouth to take a guzzle, you really notice the difference in smell, even if you are not purposefully going for a good sniff.

Therefore, if anyone has any brew attempts that have got closer to the Fuller's smell, I would very much appreciate you help in explaining what you did to replicate the aroma. Simply a yeast change? I don't know.

Good luck with cloning.

SMASH3R

[coatesg]

OG 1060 and FG 1010 gives an ABV of ~6.5% (using the HMRc rules). ESB is not that strong - it's 5.5% on draught so I think there's something wrong here. (Doesn't the pride finish at 1010?)

I would say that for all the Fullers brews, the yeast is of utmost importance too. I can detect the Fullers in a pint brewed with WLP002 that Nottingham just doesn't give. It's like a more toffee, fruity estery flavour (It's hard to describe).

[flything]

The yeast is really easy to grow up from a bottle of 1845 or Bengal Lancer too, grown up into a 2lt starter it fermented 23lt of porter in 36 hours.

[steve_flack]

OG 1060 and FG 1010 gives an ABV of ~6.5% (using the HMRc rules). ESB is not that strong - it's 5.5% on draught so I think there's something wrong here. (Doesn't the pride finish at 1010?)

Bottled ESB (and Pride) are both stronger than cask. The stats given by the brewer in the interview is 1.060->1.011 for ESB and 1.048->1.009 for Pride.

Those are pretty high attenuations for Fullers yeast (WLP002) but in my experience quite achievable with a low mash temp.

[SMASH3R]

So Jim's Beer Kit forumites, it's only been 11 years and 1 month since I last brewed this, but it's always been on my repeat list.
But with the correct yeast!

Unfortunately, I didn't have all the ingredients, and with a small toddler on the scene making best laid plans difficult (or any plans for that matter), I sometimes have to try and get by with what I have. So here is what I've managed to crack on with this evening. It was pretty noisy outside given it's bonfire night!

I basically glanced at this thread and my brewing book and matched up via pure guess-work as best I could picking ingredients I had in stock that I thought were reasonably close.

The bitterness and colour calcs have been done just now, after the fact. I just went off (educated) guess work whilst doing the brew.
It will be very interesting to see how the final beer turns out!

Grain Bill
5830g Maris Otter
310g 175 EBC Crystal
70g 450 EBC Crystal

This gives a final 22 EBC with my collected 24L post boil. Obviously a touch down on my target 32 EBC. Pah, it's only colour!
I have brewer's caramel, but I think I will just leave it as-is.

Hop Schedule
Target 28g 9.8% AA 100 min 29 IBU
Hallertau Mittelfruh 30g 3.0% AA 3 mins 2 IBU
Northdown 20g 7.5% AA 3 mins 3 IBU

First Gold 20g post boil for circa 30 mins.

I estimate final IBU will be around 35, so spot on. Pure luck I'm sure.

Crash cooled to collect 24L at original gravity 1.057 at 20°C (exact target O.G. required)

Tomorrow morning I will keg up my Hobgoblin clone (Puckin' Ale recipe from this forum I've brewed loads of times) and recover the Fuller's yeast (WPL002) from the bottom of the fermenter that has been conditioned via the Hobgoblin as a 'starter' for the ESB. The ESB being a bit stronger at around 6%, I wanted to get the yeast in fighting form before I pitched it, and a near 4.5% ale was a good way to do that.